Azerbaijan dictates its terms even in Yerevan

An Azerbaijani delegation took part in the 13th meeting of the TRACECA (Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia) intergovernmental commission, held in Yerevan, and achieved all the set goals, a source in the Azerbaijani government said March 12.

According to the source, everything was good for the Azerbaijani delegation.

"The delegation, headed by National Secretary of Azerbaijan in TRACECA Akif Mustafayev, also consisted of the representatives at the level of deputy head of the department of the Foreign Ministry, head of the department of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, as well as chief adviser from the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies," the source said.

The source said that the delegation had a number of important tasks.

"In particular, one of the tasks was to prevent the election of TRACECA secretary general. The matter rests in the fact that according to the provisions on the Secretariat, the secretary general is elected for a period of two or three years and the next meeting of the intergovernmental committee will be held in Baku in 2019.”

“Therefore, if the election of the secretary general had been held in Yerevan, then the election would not have taken place in Baku and the elected candidate would have been the secretary general during the presidency of Armenia and during the presidency of Azerbaijan,” the source said. “A decision was made that this does not correspond to the interests of Azerbaijan, and perhaps, the secretary general elected in Yerevan would more serve the interests of Armenia.”

“However, due to the conducted work, the election of the secretary general was not held because there was no consensus, and the term of the presidency of the current secretary general was extended for another year,” the source said. “Thus, the election of a new secretary general will be held at the 14th session of the intergovernmental commission in Baku in 2019. Of ​​course, the representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia cannot be elected TRACECA secretary general as the countries are at war.”

“In Baku, the election will be held on the conditions that the countries will be notified in advance of the candidates who will present their programs for the development of the corridor, which has not been done before,” the source said. “Presently, there is a certainty that all TRACECA members will have the opportunity to choose the most worthy person who will serve the development of the corridor."

The source added that the Azerbaijani delegation managed to achieve the cancellation of the adoption of the declaration of the 13th meeting.

"The phrase, which was in favor of Azerbaijan, about the reference to the declaration of the Baku summit of 1998 was deleted from the text of the declaration to be adopted,” the source said. “The Azerbaijani delegation stopped the process of adopting the declaration. Therefore, taking into account that Armenia wanted to make its own additions, the declaration was not adopted. Only resolutions were adopted. So, the goals and tasks set for the delegation were completely fulfilled."

The source also noted that the Turkish delegation did not participate in the meeting.

"Before the meeting of the intergovernmental committee, Yerevan canceled the protocols on the normalization of the Armenia-Turkey relations, which were signed in Switzerland,” the source said. “In response, Turkey’s representative did not come to the meeting. Thus, there were not flags of Turkey and Uzbekistan at the venue, although these countries are members of the multilateral agreement. At the request of the Azerbaijani side, the flags of Turkey and Uzbekistan were hung along with the flags of other 11 countries."

The source said that the security of the Azerbaijani delegation was ensured at a high level.

"In this regard, appeals were made at the highest level to TRACECA secretary general and Armenia," the source said.

TRACECA is an international program of cooperation in the field of transport between the EU and partner countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The organization has a permanent secretariat in Baku.